Fed slams Tory 'right to move' plans
The National Housing Federation has branded Conservative proposals to help social tenants move house ‘unworkable’.
Federation chief executive David Orr said the right to move idea addresses a ‘critical issue’, but is the wrong way to solve the problem.
Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps reiterated the party’s commitment to pilot the scheme in his speech to its annual conference in Manchester.
Under the proposal, social housing tenants would be able to demand that their landlord sells their current home, and uses the proceeds to buy them another home anywhere in England.
In his speech, Mr Shapps said: ‘Under Conservatives, social tenants who want to relocate for employment – or just to be closer to elderly relatives – will be able to take advantage of our right to move policy.’
But Mr Orr said: ‘Mobility is a critical issue for many people living in social housing, but this is the wrong way to achieve it.
‘A far more effective way to achieve social mobility would be to overhaul the allocations system for social housing, so that tenants needing to move for employment purposes will find it easier to get a home in the area they want to move to.’
He added that the scheme would result in housing associations having ‘properties dotted all over the country’, and that the costs associated with this would damage their ability to build new homes and provide services for their tenants.
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Readers' comments (12)
Joe Halewood | 06/10/2009 4:20 pm
So if you are a tenant in a london borough say Mr Greenhalghs borough renting a house worth £400k and your job takes you to Crewe or any other much lower cost region where a larger house can be ought for say £120k.
Your council can sell your property and make £280k profit.
But if youre living in a £120k property in Crewe and you want to move to Fulham??
Is this not just impractical, but a way of clearing London of all social housing tenants leaving behind the property owning magnates with noone able to fill the low pay jobs the capital thrives on?
Then if you are the fulham tenant living in Crewe and u want repairs done or just want to meet your housing officer - what an ill-thought through superficial heap of crap.
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Joe Halewood | 06/10/2009 4:37 pm
October 2010
Dear Mr Shapps
Just thought I would write to thank you. Before your wonderful 'right to move' policy was introduced I was earning £60k per annum though living in a deck access and unsafe 2-bed flat in Fulham with no outside space. I couldnt even afford a low cost home ownership house.
Your policy forced my council to buy me a new house in leafy Cheshire where i enjoy a much increased standard of living in the local 'green welly' belt and can afford to work far less stressfully in Macdonalds in Wilmsow to afford the rent.
Of course my £250k new 3-bed with garden front and back no less house made a tidy £150k profit for the great flagship Tory council at Fulham and the rent on my new one is linked to the local reference rent of just £400 per month, the same as a weekly rent on a damp 2-bed private flat in my old stomping ground of Fulham.
Yours appreciatively
Mr J Farquar-Barrington-Smythe
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B.S. Townroe | 07/10/2009 8:07 am
So, Mr Schapps, is this the tenants' right to move or a council's right to sell off your home and relocate you out of what ought to be a nice Tory-voting area (you as a social tenant are clearly part of the great unwashed and not worthy of living with nice people)? Ethnic cleansing as tenant choice. Now, there's a radical policy for you.
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Melvin Bone | 07/10/2009 8:37 am
This idea needs ditching. It sounds like its not been thought through.
Maybe a revamp of mutual exchanges could be developed instead...
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Sancho | 07/10/2009 10:39 am
I love Grant Shapps. Comedy gold every time. But, yes, of course this is a mechanism for moving social tenants out of high value, Conservative areas to strengthen their vote. The Tory ideology these days seems to be entirely about getting into power and staying there. Any kind of genuine policy direction appears to have vanished, much the same as when 'New Labour' abandoned the working classes. The loss of genuine belief and ideology, at either end of the political spectrum, is a great loss to our society.
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kass | 07/10/2009 10:44 am
I simply cannot understand how the tories can never get social housing (or some of it) right... Here they have an issue gagging for some commonsense alternative and all they do keep missing out their opportunities time and again... On this showing their much taken for granted victory at the next general elections made well turn out in sour grapes.
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Joe Halewood | 07/10/2009 11:35 am
Novemeber 2010
Mr Shapps
You told us all the right to move would be good and workable.
Yet my neighbour here in Crewe and all his friends and many others insisted the council sell their council flats so they could go and live and work in Fulham which they did. This cost the council £250k a pop and ive just received my council tax bill for next year and its £40k a month! Can you cap them as usual please?
Do I have a right to move now? Please advise.
Please feel free to use this example against those hand-wringing liberals who said this policy would move all social tenants out of London and keep up the good work.
Mr D Mailsunreader-Feathestonehaugh
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Steven James | 07/10/2009 11:58 am
The Conservative proposal is fantastic! Its great news for public housing. Now, Local Authorities will be able to receive monies from reallocating tenants through a sale of a property. That means more money for decent homes and more money for development. It means that those on the waiting list for social housing will be able to live in accommodation suitable for the 21st century and not for the 20th century (cold & damp). Bravo Schnaps
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Harry Lime | 07/10/2009 1:04 pm
No Steven, it means those on the waiting list for social housing will have to wait even longer, or for ever in expensive wards (Tory wards perhaps?) Are you aware of the law of diminishing returns? Selling expensive homes for cheaper will improve the housing stock how exactly, at least in terms of location? Sell one social home for £200k, buy one for £150K, use £50k on "other" purposes (remember how little of RTB receipts councils actually saw) and you end up with a cheaper social home. ILAG will love this scheme, there would probably be no social housing left at all in London!
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computerwolfuk | 11/10/2009 1:58 pm
Sounds like another case of the Tories opening their mouths before engaging their brains perhaps.... there are so many unanswered questions. I wonder how many future parlimentarians are now considering selling off their second homes before the probability of this policy is introduced???
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